Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Moo Meme #7 - time for the Ultra-violence

Alex, played by Malcolm McDowell

The good: he’s who I wanted to grow up to be before I grew up enough to realize I really wanted to be Martin Blank.
The bad: he’s pretty much perfect.
The ugly: seriously, I have no criticisms.
Best line: “No time for the ol' in-out, love. I've just come to read the meter!”

He’s not violent, he just has style. Who else can perform “Singing in the Rain” while dancing, beating a senior citizen, and raping his hot young wife? This is the guy who inspired me and my droogs to try to be British before we discovered that really didn’t work for us (middle Tennessee meets London underground isn’t as cool as you might think). Better still, it helped nurture my growing love of books after the public school system did its best to quash it. It was the first movie I saw that inspired me to read the book, buy the soundtrack, AND attempt to dress and act like the main characters. Okay, I kind of wanted to look and act like Conan the Barbarian first, but our Nazi public schools have those pesky rules preventing the wearing of fur loin cloths and broadswords.

After watching the movie and reading the book and unsuccessfully trying to duplicate the nadsat patois in real life, my junior high school English class (they dragged me into the advanced class despite the fact I never, technically, did any schoolwork) said we could pick any book we wanted to review, as long as it was a classic, where classic = any book written more than ten years ago that had made at least a million dollars (because anything that made a lot of money and was written by a dead white dude must be a valid work of art). Score! A Clockwork Orange fit the bill! Then my teacher, Coach SomebodyIforgot, modified the requirement to include only books “that I approve of.” I think the school let me do some version of Excalibur written in the 1950's, although I don't know how many copies that release sold. At least it involved lots of tolchucking, although it was a bit shy on the old in-out.

16 comments:

Dr.Alistair said...

alex sure was a mis-understood sort. product of society i suppose....

Mighty Hunter said...

Oh, my brothers.

I dressed as Alex for Hallowe'en once. No-one got it. Buncha savages, the lot of them.

Avitable said...

I'm not a fan of the movie. Meh.

Dr.Alistair said...

kubrick was saying something there...being forced to drink milk...

Jay said...

This is starting to get a little disturbing. I hope Hannibal Lecter isn't coming next.

Unknown said...

At last a movie I've seen too and one of my favorites too. The book was twice as awesome.

Monogram Queen said...

Grant you are confusing me mightily these days LOL

Oh and did I tell you they have you blocked at work? I can only comment when I get home. I'm not sure what you've got on here that caueses you to be blocked.
You're the only one. You're special

tiff said...

One of my favorite movies of all time, even though I cringe each and every time I see it. Some scenes are beyond horrific, which is what makes it terrific.

Captain Dumbass said...

"Conan! What is best in life?"

Grant said...

dr.alistair - agreed - society is to blame. We should imprison them too.

Mighty Hunter - you should have re-enacted a couple of scenes to jog their memory. Beating one dude and raping his wife while singing and dancing is most recommended.

Avitable - boobies and violence - what's not to like? Oh, right - no Japanese women. I'm with you.

dr.alistair - bourbon is much healthier.

Jay - he's at least on my list of honorable mentions.

SJ - I've heard the British version includes another chapter wherein Alex reforms and becomes normal. I'm glad I got the American version.

Monogram Queen - your company is not down with hot Asians. Obviously you work for commies. Kill them immediately.

tiff - your description should be the official DVD cover summary.

Captain Dumbass - in the army, we wanted to replace our standing three general orders with Conan's reply.

Robin said...

i love him, he's so fucked up.

Grant said...

Robin - I'm glad you appreciate that sort of thing.

Unknown said...

Alex got laid a lot despite his poor behavior.

Grant said...

Ricardo - in the book, the scene he had with two women were actually young girls he drugged and raped, so you could say he got laid because of his poor behavior.

Unknown said...

Not they way I would have done it. I want my parties to be of age, ready and willing.

Grant said...

Ricardo - ideally that's preferable, but we should keep our options open.